


Baby Fund

by softestlad



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Family Fluff, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 12:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18011231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softestlad/pseuds/softestlad
Summary: What's the point in having a million-member strong extended family if they can't donate a few bob towards getting member million and one?





	Baby Fund

“Don’t be a baby, Robert, she said it was just for a pint.” Aaron locked up the Mill, catching his own eye roll in the glass of the door. He turned to face his husband and smirked at the second’s lag it took Robert to meet his eyes. Smart money had his gaze on Aaron’s arse. Robert was ever the opportunist.

“But what’s so urgent about this afternoon?” Robert whinged, then changed tack, a sparkle coming to his eye. He swayed towards Aaron, and Aaron opened his arms for Robert’s approach, the gesture as automatic as breathing, as synapses firing. Robert put his hands on Aaron’s waist, his thumbs brushing back and forth as he grinned down.

“I don’t know,” Aaron said, keeping his face placid even as his own hands crept up to meet Robert’s elbows. “And I won’t ever know if we don’t get to the pub.”

“We can go to the pub any day,” Robert wheedled, ducking his head for a quick kiss that was over before Aaron’s eyes had completely finished fluttering closed. “We can see your mum any day,” Robert said, stealing another kiss, pulling Aaron closer, wrapping him up in his long arms. “But today…”

“Today?”

“Liv is out with Jacob,” Robert finished, and Aaron laughed, small exhalations through his nose. He slid his hands up from Robert’s elbows to his chest. He leaned in, then when Robert had closed his eyes, shoved him lightly. Robert stumbled back a step, an indignant expression on his face as Aaron slipped out of his reach, laughing. He started walking up their driveway.

“She’ll be out until late,” Aaron said, directing it over his shoulder. “We have time for a pint _and_ an early night.” Robert popped up next to him, long legs quickly making up the distance between them. Aaron shoved his hands in his pockets as they walked, Robert walking so closely alongside that their arms brushed.

“But what if I can’t wait that long?”

“Then we need to get you to a doctor.”

“What if I _don’t want_ to wait that long?” Robert, glancing between Aaron’s eyes and his lips in the way that always made Aaron look down and away, shake his head, like he couldn’t believe someone wanted him _this_ much. Except he could believe it, because it had been years, but he still wanted Robert just as much.

“I hear patience is a virtue.”

“So is temperance, but here you are, dragging me to the pub.”

“One pint, Robert,” Aaron said, as they drew closer to the Woolie. “Pretty sure we can spare the hour.” Aaron spotted Ellis across the road, remembering he needed to have a word about one of the cars at the yard. He bumped Robert’s shoulder with his own and nodded at Ellis, wordlessly asking Robert to wait a minute for him. “’Sides, less time means we’ll have to make the most of it.” Aaron winked before walking away backwards a few steps, unable to stop the grin that stole across his lips at the spark and burn happening in Robert’s eyes. Aaron turned and loped over to Ellis, knowing without looking back that Robert watched him take every step.

-

Aaron jogged to catch up to Robert, his long legs and sense of urgency – _The sooner we get there, the sooner we leave, Aaron. And I have plans for you tonight –_ carrying him to the pub all the quicker. Aaron clapped his husband between his broad shoulders as they entered the Woolpack. They were in the door a fraction of a second before Chas’ voice rang out.

“Sweetheart!” Her grin was wide and Aaron blinked, turning to Robert.

“Is that?”

“Your mum, holding a huge jar with a nappy on it?” Robert said, blandly, immune by now to Dingle surprises. As long as he didn’t have to drink out of it.

“Mum?” Aaron noticed Vic, Diane, Paddy, Cain and Moira, and Charity and Vanessa, all squashed into the two back booths. Chas rounded the bar, shaking the trussed up tub. “What is that?”

“Baby fund!”

“You what?” Aaron looked again at the tub, recognising the jingling sound of money rattling around inside.

“We’ve all been chatting, love, and after Robert’s Home Farm scheme fell on its face – “

“Cheers, Chas.”

“- We’ve decided to do sommat about it.” Chas’ eyes softened and Aaron looked at the booths to see the same expression on many of the faces there, except Cain who was staring blankly into his pint, and Vic, who was practically vibrating in her seat. “It’s hardly fair is it, that you and Robert, two wonderful, amazing dads – “

Aaron felt Robert straighten up next to him, soaking up the praise in silence the way he only ever did when it was something he really needed to hear. And he always needed to hear a kind word from Chas. It was hard won, and that was Robert’s favourite flavour of victory. Aaron glanced at Diane, hoping she wouldn’t bring up Jack, and that he wouldn’t have to watch Robert deflate under the fatherly what-if.

“- that you have to work so hard to have a baby when it seems like half the village only has to slip and fall to make it happen.” Charity snorted. “So we’re going to help you boys have my next grandbaby.”

“Mum – “ Aaron said, before closing his mouth, speechless.

“We’ve raised a bit between us all,” Chas said, gesturing to the stuffed booths, “but it’s not quite there yet, so we’ll be setting this out on the bar, and getting the village to pitch in. We know it costs a bombs and we won't be able to cover all of it, but we can at least help you, love.”

“All these straight people walking around with full pockets and a shower of sprogs,” Charity shook her head, Vanessa watching her with a fondness Aaron knew he also wore looking at his own blonde bisexual nightmare. “It’s just not right.”

“You’d know about having a shower of sprogs,” Cain said, livening up for the first time and earning a slap on the arm from Moira.

“I certainly would,” Charity breezed past the comment, “which is why I’ve made a generous donation to the baby bucket.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Robert looked at the jar cradled against Chas’ chest as though it was a baby itself. “None of you had to do this. Not that we don’t appreciate it, we’re skint, and Home James is going to take a while to really get off the ground again but – “

“Then just shut your gob and be happy about it, Rob,” Victoria said, adjusting her blue chef’s hat.

“Here, here,” Charity said, and raised her glass. Robert still struggled for something to say, Aaron putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing.

“Well, thank you then,” Robert said. “You don’t know what this means to us.” Aaron would have taken the piss over the slight catch in his voice if he thought he could speak without having one himself.

“My boys,” Chas said, scooping them both into a hug, the tub hitting off Robert’s back where she still held it.

“Thanks mum,” Aaron said. They pulled away and Chas placed the tub in pride of place on the bar.

“Won’t be long now pet,” Diane said, nodding to Robert as she rose from the booth. “We’ll have little Sugden-Dingles all over the place.” Robert smiled.

“God help us,” Paddy said.

-

Robert sat on their couch, in their home, staring into space.

“Robert?” Aaron sat down next to him, putting two beers down on the table. “Robert, are you okay?”

Robert cleared his throat. “Course I am, I just…”

“Just?”

“Can’t believe this is my life.” He paused, then turned to look at Aaron, lifting a hand to his face, running his thumb along his beard. His face softened, his voice low and hazy like he was in a dream. “Our life.”

“I know,” Aaron shuffled closer, hooking a leg over Robert’s and swinging an arm around the back of the couch.

“I just… you know I love Seb more than life, but this is different. And not just because it’s us, it’s because I choose it?” Aaron rested his elbow so he could raise his hand to Robert’s hair, making a tucking motion around his ear, over and over as he listened. “Everything I ever wanted, you know how hard I worked to get it. But so much of that, I wanted it because I was supposed to want it. I’d bend over backwards to make it happen but looking back now it’s just so obvious that it wasn’t what I wanted because this, Aaron – “

Aaron paused in his motions, thumb at rest at the corner of Robert’s jaw. He looked into his husband’s eyes and found them serious, but full of light. Full of love.

“I want this. You. Us. Our family, I want it so much. I choose it, Aaron, I choose it with my whole heart, and just mine. It’s not about what I think I should want, or how I want people to see me, how I’d want my dad to see me. It’s just. You’re it. You’re everything.”

There was a lump in Aaron’s throat, but that wasn’t going to stop him from kissing his husband. He threaded his hand back into Robert’s hair, tugging him the short distance forward until their mouths met, soft lips in a hard press. It was overwhelming, bringing him back to their first wedding in the garage.

_It’s just because I love you so much. I just don’t know what to do with it sometimes._

He pulled back just far enough rub his nose against Robert’s, the air between them warm and sweet. Aaron would find the words, he promised himself. Like the night he won his husband back, dragged him into love, he would find the words to tell him how much it meant to him. To be chosen. To think of the future not as something that was coming for him, but that he was running into, full pelt, a hand in his. He’d tell him how proud he was, of both of them, of how far they’d come and how far they could still go. But they were words for a different shade of light, a different kind of closeness.

“I love you,” he murmured, because he felt it, because it was true. He unspooled himself and stood up from the couch, holding a hand out for Robert to take. “Let’s go to bed.”

_You’re the love of my life,_ Aaron thought, pulling Robert up from the couch, leading him upstairs. _We’re going to be so happy._


End file.
